Biden confronts 2024 weak spots with young, Black voters at Morehouse commencement

• President Joe Biden addressed the war in Gaza and discussed his investments in Black communities during a commencement speech at Morehouse College, a historically Black men's college.
• The remarks came as part of a larger effort to reinvigorate the young Black voter coalition that helped elect him in 2020, which he is currently lagging with, according to recent polls.
• Officials across the administration have been traveling to battleground states to make the case for Biden's effectiveness for Black communities.

President Joe Biden on Sunday addressed the war in Gaza and discussed his investments in Black communities during a commencement speech at Morehouse College, part of a larger effort to reinvigorate the voter coalition that helped elect him in 2020.

"We're connecting Black neighborhoods cut off by old highways and decades of disinvestment when no one cared about the community," the president said at Morehouse, a historically Black men's college in Atlanta.

The president spotlighted several other policy victories to rally his audience, including his student loan relief program and a new $16 billion investment for historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.

Biden's commencement address at Morehouse comes as recent polling has showed Black voters, especially young ones, have weakening enthusiasm for the president.

Biden's support among Black voters so far is 7 percentage points lower than it was at the same period in 2020, according to an NBC News average of national polls since April 1. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump's support from Black voters has increased by 9 percentage points. But Biden still has the majority of support among Black voters, at 69% vs. Trump's 18%.

While he still holds steady